WarstonesPrimary School

Child Protection and

Safeguarding Policy

Approved:September 2015

Due for review:September 2017

Signed:(Chair of Governors)
Date:

WARSTONES PRIMARY SCHOOL

Safeguarding Policy

Introduction

Warstones PrimarySchool recognises its legal duty under s175 Education Act 2002 and the 1989 Children Act and takes seriously its responsibilities to protect and safeguard the interests of all children. The School recognises that effective child protection work requires sound procedures, good inter-agency co-operation and a workforce that is competent and confident in responding to child protection situations. This document provides the basis for good practice within the school for Child Protection work. It should be read in conjunction with Wolverhampton Safeguarding Children Board (WSCB), Multi-Agency Child Protection Policies and Procedures. These are in keeping with relevant national procedures and reflect what the Directorate considers to be safe and professional practice in this context. Child Protection has to be considered within “professionals’’ wider “safeguarding” responsibilities’ that include a duty to co-operate under the Children Act 2004. Within the context of Every Child Matters, this takes account of the need for children “being healthy and staying safe”.

These procedures aim to provide a framework which ensures that all practice in the area of child protection is consistent with stated values and procedures that underpin all work with children and young people.

This document also seeks to make the professional responsibilities clear to all staff to ensure that statutory and other duties are met in accordance with WSCB requirements and procedures.

Underpinning values

Where there is a safeguarding issue, Warstones School will work in accordance with the principles outlined in WSCB Multi-Agency Child Protection procedures:

  • A child’s welfare is paramount. Each child has a right to be protected from harm and exploitation and to have their welfare safeguarded.
  • Each child is unique; action taken by child welfare organisations should be child-centred taking account of a child’s cultural, ethnic and religious background, their gender, their sexual orientation, their individual ability and special needs.
  • Children, parents and other carers should be made aware of their responsibilities and their rights, together with advice about the power of professionals to intervene in their family circumstances.
  • Each child has a right to be consulted about actions taken by others on his/her behalf. The concerns of children and their families should be listened to and due consideration given to their understanding, wishes and feelings.
  • Individual family members must be involved in decisions affecting them. They must be treated with courtesy and respect and with due regard given to working with them in a spirit of partnership in safeguarding children’s welfare.
  • Open-mindedness and honesty must guide each stage of assessment and operational practice. The strengths of individual family members, as well as their needs, should be given due consideration.
  • Personal information is usually confidential. It should only be shared with the permission of the individual concerned, or unless the disclosure of confidential personal information is necessary in order to protect a child. In all circumstances, information must be confined to those people directly involved in the professional network of each individual child and on a strict “need to know” basis.
  • Professionals should be aware of the effects of outside intervention upon children, upon family life and the impact and implications of what they say and do.
  • Explanationsby professionals to children, their families and other cares should be plainly stated and jargon-free, unavoidable technical and professional terminology should be explained in simple terms.
  • Sound professional practice is based upon positive inter-agency collaboration, evidence-based researchand effective supervision and evaluation.
  • Early intervention in providing support services under Section 17 of the Children Act (1989) is and important principle of practice in inter-agency arrangements for safeguarding the welfare of children.

Guidance on ‘Whether this is a Child Protection Matter’

If staff have a significant concerns about any child they should make them known to the schools Designated or Deputy Designated Child Protection Leads. These concerns may include:

Physical Abuse:

Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating, or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the systems of, or deliberately induces illness in a child.

Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse is the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to children that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or ‘making fun’ of what they say or how they communicate. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. These may include interactions that are beyond the child’s developmental capability, as well as overprotection and limitation of exploration and learning, or preventing the child participating in normal social interaction. It may involve seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another. It may involve serious bullying (including cyber-bullying), causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger, or the exploitation or corruption of children. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child, though it may occur alone.

Neglect

Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of child’s health or development. Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse.

Once a child is born, neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:

  • provide adequate food, clothing and shelter ( including exclusion from home or abandonment)
  • protect a child from physical and emotional harm or danger
  • ensure adequate supervision (including the use of inadequate care-givers)
  • ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment
  • it may also include neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional need.

Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, not necessarily involving a high level of violence, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including assault by penetration (e.g. rape, or oral sex) or non-penetrative acts such as masturbation, kissing, rubbing and touching outside the clothing. They may include non-contact activities such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, sexual images, watching sexual activities, encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways, grooming a child in preparation for abuse (including via the internet). Sexual abuse is not solely perpetrated by adult males. Women can also commit acts of sexual abuse, as can other children.

Points to consider when making a referral

Is this a child with unmet needs where health, development or achievement may be affected? Wolverhampton Supporting Children’ Model says practitioners should complete a Common Assessment Framework (CAF) when:

  • age appropriate progress is not being made and the causes are unclear or
  • the support of more than one agency is needed to meet the child or young person’s needs.

If this is a child with additional needs discuss the child and parents. You will need to obtain parental consent for a CAF to be completed.

Is this child in need? S17 of the Children Act 1989 says:

  • they are unlikely to achieve or maintain, or to have opportunity to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development
  • their health or development is likely to be impaired, or further impaired without the provision of such services.
  • they are disabled.

Is this a child protection matter? S47 of the Children Act 1989 says:

  • children at risk or who are suffering significant harm.
  • children suffering the effects of significant harm
  • serious health problems.

All concerns, child with unmet needs, child in need and child protection matter, should be discussed with the designated teacher and will need to be assessed and referred using the correct channels by the school as soon as possible.

Where a case reaches the ‘significant harm’ threshold that justifies statutory intervention into family life. A professional making a child protection referral under S.47 must therefore provide information which clearly outlines that a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.

It is not possible to rely on one absolute criterion when judging what constitutes significant harm. Consideration of the severity of ill-treatment may include the extent of the harm suffered, the context within which it occurred and its duration.

Significant harm may also arise from a combination ofsignificant events which are both acute and long standing and which impair the child’s physical, psychological and social development. In order to both understand and establish significant harm, it is necessary to consider the family context, together with the child’s development within their wider social and cultural environment. It is also necessary to consider any special needs, e.g. medical condition, communication difficulties or disability that may affect the child’s development and care within the family. The nature of harm, in terms of ill-treatment of failure to provide adequate care also needs consideration alongside the impact on the child’s health and development and the adequacy of care provided.

Making Referrals

Where a child is registered at school, consultation must take place with the school’s DCPL or Deputy, who will often be the most appropriate person to initiate any referral. A written record of the concerns should be made using the schools internal recording form. This should be used to aid in the decision making process if a referral is needed to the Duty and Assessment Team.

For referral to Duty and Assessment, phone 01902 555392 (01902 552999 out of hours Emergency Duty Team), and speak to the Duty Social Worker. Any action will need to be followed up with a written confirmation on the SC1 (Multi-agency form).

Where a member/s of staff witness an event on site which causes concern they should, if possible, notify the DCPL at the time and before the person involved leaves. This may result in the DCPL calling the police or Duty and Assessment immediately to report the concern and receive additional advice.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an issue that need to be understood by all those working with children, particularly in the context of child protection. This is a complex area and involves consideration of a number of pieces of legislation.

You can never guarantee confidentiality to a child as some kind of information may need to be shared to others. A suggestion for words that may help when talking to children is as follows:

“I will keep our conversation confidential and agree with you what information I can

share, unless you tell me something that will affect your personal safety, places you at risk of harm, or that is illegal,but I will tell you if I am going to pass information on and who to”.

Professionals can only work together to safeguard children if there is an exchange of relevant information between them. This has been recognised in principle by the courts. However, any disclosure of personal information to others, including children’s social care,must always have regard to both common and statute law.For example, all staff working with a child for whom access is restricted to ensure that the child in question is collected only by named persons.

Normally, personal information should only be disclosed to third parties (including other agencies) with the consent of the subject of that information (Data Protection Act 1998 EuropeanConvention on Human Rights, Article8). Wherever possible consent should be obtained before sharing personal information with third parties. In some circumstances, however, consent may not be possible or desirable but the safety and welfare of the child dictate that the information should be shared.

The law requires the disclosure of confidential information necessary to safeguard a child or children under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 statutory agencies have a duty to co-operate. Therefore, if the Police or Children’s Social Care are conducting a Section 47 investigation under the 1989 Children Act, staff must share requested information relevant to the investigation. Legal advice should be sought if in doubt from the Legal Services Department.

Talking to and listening to children

If a child chooses to disclose, you SHOULD:

  • be accessible and receptive
  • listen carefully and uncritically at the child’s pace
  • take what is said seriously
  • reassure the child that they are right to tell;
  • tell the child that you must pass this information on;
  • make a careful record of what was said.

You should NEVER:

  • take photographs or examine an injury
  • investigate or probe aiming to prove or disprove possible abuse – never ask leading questions;
  • make promises to children about confidentiality or keeping ‘secrets’
  • assume that someone else will take the necessary action;
  • jump to conclusions or react with shock, anger or horror;
  • speculate or accuse anybody;
  • confront another person(adult or child) allegedly involved;
  • offer opinions about what is being said or about the persons allegedly involved;
  • forget to record what you have been told;
  • fail to pass the information on to the correct person;
  • ask a child to sign a written copy of the disclosure.

For children with communication difficulties or who use alternative/augmented communication systems, you may need to take extra care to ensure that signs of abuse and neglect are identified and interpreted correctly, but concerns should be reported in exactly the same manner as for other children.

Record keeping

Well kept records are essential in situations where it is suspected or believed that a child may be at risk from harm.

Record should;

  • state who was present, time, date and place
  • use the child’s words wherever possible
  • be factual/state exactly what was said
  • differentiate clearly between fact, opinion, interpretation, observation and/or allegation;
  • be written in ink and signed by the recorder.

Attendance at Child Protection Conferences

The Designated Child Protection Lead or Deputy will be expected to attend the Initial Child Protection Conference.

If a child is made subject to a Child Protection Plan it may be more relevant for the class teacher or head of year to attend the subsequent core group meetings.

Protecting yourself against allegations of abuse

You should seek to keep your personal contact with children under review and seek to minimise the risk of any situation arising in which misunderstandings can occur. The following sensible precautions can be taken when working alone with children:

  • work in a room where there is a glass panel in the door or leave the door open
  • make sure that other adults visit the room occasionally
  • avoid working in isolation with children unless thought has been given to safeguards.
  • must not give out personal mobile phone numbers or private e-mail addresses
  • must not give pupils lifts home in your cars
  • must not arrange to meet them outside of school hours
  • must not chat to pupils on the social websites
  • must never take photos or videos of children on personal mobile phones or cameras. Any photos or film should be for work related purposes only and kept securely within the setting.

Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 it is a criminal offence for anyone working in an education setting to have a sexual relationship with a pupil even when the pupil is over the age of consent.

Any use of physical force or restraint against pupils will be carried out and documented in accordance with the relevant physical restraint policy. If it is necessary to use physical action to prevent a child from injury to themselves or others parents will be informed. Children will not be punished by any form of hitting, slapping, shaking or other degrading treatment.

Allegations of abuse against a professional

Children can be the victims of abuse by those who work with them in any setting. All allegations of abuse of children carried out by any staff member or volunteer should therefore be taken seriously. If an allegation is received by the Head Teacher or Chair of Governors the following should be considered.

Has the adult involved:

  • behaved in a way that has harmed a child, or may have harmed a child;
  • possibly committed a criminal offence against or related to a child
  • behaved towards a child or children in a way that indicates s/he is unsuitable to work with children

Allegations of abuse made against staff, whether historical or contemporary, should be dealt with by the headteacher not the designated child protection teacher (if the allegation is against the Head then it should be dealt with by the Chair of Governors). The head/chair should contact the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) to discuss the allegation.

This initial conversation will establish the validity of any allegation and if referral is needed to Children Social Care. If this is the case a strategy meeting will be called that the head/Chair should attend. The decision of the strategy meeting could be:

  • investigation by children’s social care
  • police investigation if there is a criminal element to the allegation
  • single agency investigation completed by the school which should involve the a representative from HR.

If a member of staff offers to resign as a result of an allegation being made, this should not prevent the allegation procedure reaching a conclusion.

E-Safety

The growth of different electronic media in everyday life and an ever developing variety of devices including PC’s, laptops, mobile phones, webcams etc. place an additional risk on our children. Internet chat rooms, discussion forums or social networks can all be used as a means of contacting children and young people with a view of grooming them for inappropriate or abusive relationships. The anonymity of the internet allows adults, often pretending to be children, to have conversations with children and in some cases arrange to meet them.